UNITED NATIONS – The first guilty plea in the oil-for-food scandal in a Manhattan federal court earlier this week sent investigators for the U.N.-sanctioned independent committee back to the drawing board to follow up on leads from the federal probe.

The committee, which is led by Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, was expected to present an interim report by the end of January, but now it will be postponed by at least a week, according to a source in the investigation who asked not to be named.

Investigators are following up on legal issues that arose from the federal case against Samir Vincent, the Iraqi-American who admitted to acting as Saddam Hussein’s agent in return for bribe money related to the U.N.-run oil-for-food program. Mr. Volcker also hopes to interview Mr. Vincent.

One of the most intriguing questions in the aftermath of the guilty plea is the identity of a U.N. official implicated by Mr. Vincent in court Tuesday. Iraq distributed several million dollars in cash for bribes through New York based Iraqi officials, Mr. Vincent testified. “Several hundred thousand dollars of this money was given to me in Manhattan, and the rest was given to others, one of whom I understood was a United Nations official.”

In addition to the Volcker commission, there are several investigations in Congress, that are attempting to “follow the money,” as one aide to Senator Norm Coleman, a Republican of Minnesota who heads the committee on permanent investigations, told the Sun yesterday. Beyond the U.N. the committee is also looking at American companies’ ties to the oil-for-food program and other new evidence in the wake of Mr. Vincent’s plea.

Two intriguing connections arose yesterday in published reports. Newsweek’s Web site reported that Mr. Vincent has ties to former Republican vice-presidential nominee, Jack Kemp, while Move America Forward’s Web site probed Mr. Vincent’s ties with President Carter.

Both advocated policies that could be seen as favorable to the Saddam regime. However, unlike the unidentified U.N. official, neither they, nor other unnamed influential Washington officials who he met with and allegedly influenced, were accused in Mr. Vincent’s testimony of having directly received a bribe from Saddam’s regime.

The Carter connection, according to Move America Forward, began in September 1999,when the former president hosted an Iraqi religious delegation organized by Mr. Vincent. Later on, Mr. Vincent, along with former U.N. ambassador Andrew Young and Mr. Carter’s son Chip, was on the seven-member board of directors of a Carter Center- inspired organization named “A World of Friends,” according to the report.

Mr. Carter was a strong advocate of repealing the sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1991 invasion of Kuwait. Yesterday he attended President Bush’s inauguration. A spokeswoman for the Carter Center did not respond to requests by the Sun for comment.

Mr. Kemp, a former football star and Republican senator, was questioned by the FBI about his ties to Mr. Vincent, according to Newsweek. Mr. Kemp has met with Mr. Vincent almost on a weekly basis, according to the report, and approached Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Powell in an attempt to ease sanctions on Iraq in exchange for Iraq allowing weapons inspectors back into the country. Mr. Kemp’s associate, the attorney Lanny Davis, told Newsweek, however, that they never discussed business ventures.